How Norway's high-speed missile boats pack a big punch

The Royal Norwegian Navy has been around, in one form or another, for over a millennium. Though once a loose conscription of seafaring coastal communities, the Royal Norwegian Navy has, for the last 200 years, been an organized force responsible for the defense of the Nordic country's deceptively long coast.

During the Cold War, the Norwegian Navy turned to fast patrol boats armed with guided missiles and torpedoes. Most of these vessels were armed with the "Penguin" anti-ship missile, which had a range of roughly 34 miles and used infra-red homing for deadly precision. Additionally, some of the Norwegian patrol boats were armed with wire-guided heavy torpedoes.

In the late 1990s, Cold War patrol boats were retired, but Norway still needed to protect the coast against the Russian threat, as diminished as it was.

To do this, they turned to a very fast vessel with some very advanced technology to replace their older vessels.

The Skjold weighs in at 274 tons and carries eight "Kongsberg" Naval Strike Missiles (NSM), along with a 76 mm gun and two .50-caliber machine guns.

This firepower is comparable to what the United States Navy had on the Pegasus-class hydrofoil missile boats.

Compared to the Penguin, the NSM packs a bigger punch and has a much longer range. The Skjold is capable of reaching speeds of up to 60 knots, leaving the US Littoral Combat Ship in the dust.

The vessels also employ stealth technology — making them very difficult to detect.

Norway currently has six of these vessels in service, and while they are very capable, they still are being asked to replace 40 Hauk, Snogg, and Storm-class missile boats. That said, despite the lower numbers, their high speed, powerful missiles, and stealth technology makes them much more likely to survive a fight.